Nuclear magnetic resonance studies of metals in solid state non-metallic materials

Abstract

The chemical nature of a metal modulates the properties and applications of various types of materials such as zeolites, inorganic complexes, polymers, metalloproteins, and RNA. To understand the roles of metals in these materials, and to design new metal containing materials, it is essential to understand the coordination chemistry around each metal site. Solid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has become one of the most valuable techniques for investigation of the structural and functional aspects of many important systems with no long range order, such as glasses, resins, catalysts, polymers, coals, silicates, and a variety of biological solids (viruses, fibril forming molecules, molecules embedded in the cell membrane). This overview presents several developments of solid state NMR to the study of a variety of metal containing materials. In particular, the use of the quadrupolar Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (QCPMG) pulse sequence techniques for the acquisition of solid state NMR spectra of quadrupolar nuclei, notably those with low natural abundances and low NMR frequencies, and applications of solid state 113Cd NMR are covered in detail.